After many tries and many hours, I finally finished the second triple quest today! This is definitely the biggest DD challenge I've taken on so far, and I'm interested in discussing it and seeing what strategies other folks chose.

Preps: I prepped the Balanced Dagger. This item is a big boon, especially since it's small and 2-1 lets you fill your inventory with helpful small items. I had prepped Dragon Seal in the past, as I did for Triple Quest 1, but ultimately I think being able to save blackspace and resources by fighting equal-level monsters is the way to go. Potions were Reflex/Dodge/Schadenfreude/Whupaz, since if 2-1 goes well I should only need one burn salve. My other preps were Shop Scroll, Mystera, Perseverance Badge, Magnet:Fireball, Smuggler's Den, and Translocation Seal.

2-1: The Shop Scroll turned up the Battlemage Ring, which I burned Translocation on immediately since my preferred way to get through this level is to lean on Fireball as much as possible. WONAFYT showed up quickly, which is of course very handy with the Balanced Dagger. BLUDTOPOWA didn't show up, which would have made things very easy, but I was able to get up to level 8 taking minimal corrosion, relying mostly on fireballs and a courage juice. I bought a Soul Orb, which I knew would be great in 2-2. APHEELSIK, regen fighting, and the level 7-8 ding made the boss go down without having to burn any resources. I proceeded to 2-2 with BURNDAYRAZ, WONAFYT, the Battlemage Ring, and a bunch of small items including one slot of attack-boosting trinkets.

2-2: Is there a way to beat the boss of this level that isn't a WHUPAZ strike followed by breaking all three totems? If so, please let me know, because nothing else ever got me anywhere near. I found HALPMEH lying around and converted the Battlemage Ring. The Soul Orb to prevent mana burn plus HALPMEH to clear poison made the monsters pretty manageable. (The trinkets from 2-1 are also handy. Before I started prepping the Balanced Dagger, I was usually able to take on stronger creatures and use levelups to cleanse.) I bought the Venom Dagger, which is not fantastic but handy and small. I found and worshiped JJ at level 3, which is later than I prefer of course, but it worked out OK. The only boons I used were Petition and Chaos Avatar. I used courage juice to get almost to level 8, used WHUPAZ and broke the totems, dinged 8, used up my health and mana, took Chaos Avatar, and then used regen fighting to finish off the boss without having to use any potions. Then--and I'm proud of this maneuver since I don't usually mess with conversion antics--I desecrated Dracul so I could convert into Tikki Tooki; then I killed some popcorn and desecrated JJ for two shots of Reflexes to take into 2-3. I also converted HALPMEH and picked up CYDSTEPP at the very end, since 2-3 seems pretty hopeless without CYDSTEPP.

2-3: I was feeling good entering this level with 3 each of Reflexes and Dodge potions and 11 mana potions. I had only been to this level once before, and the previous time I didn't run out of resources, but I ran out of usable resources--a bunch of health potions remaining but no way to take a single hit. My luck turned a little bit against me--I didn't find the Orb of Lusory until late and the high-level monsters weren't manageable (Illusions, Goo Blobs, etc.) so I had to summon the bosses at only level 8. Learning my lesson from the last time, I used my health potions on the warlock and wraith bosses before ditching Lusory to buy a Crystal Ball. It turns out that wasn't needed because my three shots of Dodge/Reflexes and giant pile of mana potions were more than enough, even to punch through the horrifyingly tough goblin boss.

Well, congrats on beating it! It's definitely one of the game's harder challenges.

My preferred prep strategy involves preparing an Alchemist's Scroll in anticipation of 2-3. This naturally means preparing the gold pile bonus to ensure that my gold will carry through to the third part. For 2-1, I prepare Jehora Jeheyu (I think this was suggested to me by Darvin?). Not only is Chaos Avatar a full corrosion-wipe, but boost health at low levels really helps to offset the corrosion until it gets to around 10-ish. Potions are Whupaz-Quicksilver-Reflexes-Burn Salve. Magnet:Fireball for consistency in part 1. A compression seal (absolutely necessary since I'm prepping Jehora, plus it's always good for the 3-part quests). Apothecary because I want to be sure to find a Fortitude Tonic by the time I hit petition. Basically:

2-1: Worship Jehora at the start and get Petition immediately, then aim for boost health. I usually end up taking two shots. Buy a Fortitude Tonic as soon as you get petition, as you'll almost invariably have a weakening hit and/or poison. Level up as efficiently as possible, avoiding all the corrosion you can. I usually take a first Burn salve between levels 3-5 depending on how it's going. Aim for level 7-ding-8-Chaos Avatar 9 for the boss, but most importantly, leave lots of blackspace! APHEELSIK is incredible here. Once you're done, grab all the trinkets you can + a stack of all the courage juice there is. Prioritize base damage trinkets, usually a row and a half is good enough for me.

2-2: Yeah, whupaz followed by hitting the three totems is most likely the only solution here. In general, finding a good deity here makes a huge difference. Earthmother and Dracul are the most useful here. APHEELSIK is also highly useful for the boss, since even after all that he has a decent chunk of HP + weakening. Try and conserve as many potions as you can, and also keep an eye on your gold, since you're relying on the Alchemist Scroll for part 3; courage juice uses up that gold! Speaking of which, the more courage juice you carry over into part 3 for fuelling the alchemist scroll there, the more you'll save actual potions for the bosses, so try and preserve as many as you can in 2-2 even if you have the gold to support it. Other than that, your trinkets do most of your work for you here. In the end, convert anything you don't need into mana potions to carry into part 3. The two best things to carry into part 3 are, without a doubt, BLUDTOPOWA and CYDSTEP. You may also want a glyph like ENDISWAL, WEYTWUT or PISORF for clearing a passage since part 3 tends to generate very long corridors and fill them with level 10 illusions (AARGH)

2-3: If you come into this dungeon with your alchemist scroll, 24-30 gold, some courage juice (preferably), BLUDTUPOWA as well as most of the potions you could get in the first two parts, there's no reason you should lose here, other than getting separated from Aequitas by a bunch of level 10 Illusions. CYDSTEP is wonderful for Bleaty and Gobb, and you'll want to use Reflexes + Quicksilver on whichever one is more problematic depending on your circumstances. The boss gold can help with conversion junk for more health potions (the efficiency of which is boosted by your large health pool), not to mention actually useful items.

Going back over this, I'm wondering whether it might be a better idea to prep Earthmother instead of JJ for part 1. Removing Chaos Avatar hurts a lot, but I'm wondering whether spamming some greenblood + entanglement along with clearance might compensate along with actually getting a full inventory (more trinkets or the option to carry something invaluable like B2P or CYDSTEP). Otherwise, I'm quite happy with the overal strategy. I'm honestly surprised that you were able to beat 2-3 without preparing anything specific for it. That's impressive!

4-5 levels of Greenblood + fireball + a shot of clearance to get high level kills if needed is an effective workaround to the corrosion problems early on in 2-1, and Namtar is excellent for levelling in all three stages and helps with the final bosses too. With the EM/fireball strategy I only need to use one burn salve, partway through the boss. The main problem was getting myself stuck, which I solved by using Clearance for levelling since regen fighting the boss isn't difficult.

Pretty sure Whupaz then 3 totems is the intended solution to 2-2. With Namtar's ward + courage juice it doesn't matter too much which deities spawn, you can power through high level enemies if you're not afraid to take a weaken hit or two from Nagas, and the afflictions don't do much.

When I got to the boss stage in 2-3 for the first time I didn't take fireball along, which resulted in the painful situation of having to fight Tower of Goo with purely physical damage. Fortunately I had CYDSTEPP, Namtar's, some TT potions and PISORF for efficient kills on the rest of the bosses, but I just barely managed to win, although completely dry of resources, at the end.

The Avatar wrote:Heh. 3-1 is the really easy part of the final Triple Quest. Just wait till you see the last two.

Man, you weren't lying. I have 3-1 down stone cold, but 3-2 is kicking my butt. I beat it exactly once by converting everything I had for the critical levelup, which left me without enough resources to even figure out what horrible gimmick 3-3 has waiting for me.